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Topic: The Street Date Debate (Read 5725 times)

Went by a Target in STL today, they had set up the aisle and had the mid size vehicles out, $24.99 each. No problems scanning.

Also of note - there was 12 feet of shelf space for new figuers, including a lot of pegs:

12 Vintage8 Legends4 Clone Wars

Interesting that just 1/6 of the pegs were for Clone Wars, considering how successful Hasbro claims that line is... with only three new figures in the first wave, it seems to me that Target could have some major pegwarmers right off the bat causing a bottleneck if they stick to this layout.

That is interesting, and seems contrary to Habsro's talk about how huge the line is. On the other hand, it's not like he retailers will keep the figures divided on the pegs. SW is SW as far as most of them are concerned.

Maybe Hasbro is seeing TVC as a god-send way to reboot the entire realistic figure line. Maybe that's why they only made 3 new figures for the TCW line when it hits with TVC. And it can also testify to the more limited TCW shelf space.

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Went by a Target in STL today, they had set up the aisle and had the mid size vehicles out, $24.99 each. No problems scanning.

I don't think there has ever been problems during checkout at Target when buying early toys. Going back to 2005, Wal-Mart has been the only store that has the "Do Not Sell" message for toys that were put out early. I got the ROTS Droid Fighter and 2008 Clone Wars wave 1 prior to their respective release dates at Target, and I didn't have any problems.

My local store had the action figure aisle reset, but with a sign over the empty Star Wars pegs saying "New SW Toys Coming August 6th." I didn't take any time to examine the pegs, but Star Wars looks to be getting a lot of space. I was, however, very disappointed to see that GI Joe is only getting 4 pegs... those figures will probably be a bitch to find.

You're right Greg... If it's a number you can look up in Target's system throughout the store, you can checkout with it as well, as it's in their system.

And Jabba, you're right as well I believe... Hasbro's really promoting the Vintage Collection this year. They're striving for that collector market that's fallen behind Clone Wars in the past. Thus Vintage gets a bigger reboot than Clone Wars is seeming to at their intended launch date. I think they're still trying to sell kids on the movie line too though of course, thus the Cloud Car has launching stuff, the AT-AT has lots of play value, the Snowspeeder comes with the extra set of "kid" weapons and so on... The same basic trends still going along.

Hasbro's been pretty vehement at everything from Toy Fair till now that Vintage is their way of starting things over, and recapturing lost sales. It seems to be working too, judging by reactions to the vintage line's look. Lots of collectors who ditched this stuff are now rethinking collecting. Guys I know personally that I never thought would consider buying stuff in any quantity are looking at buying stuff again. Some of it seems to just be packaging changes, and seeing the line drift away from EU and more to movies... I'm surprised at that really. I like the EU, but I know lots of guys who were in it from day one who hate it too.

"There was no shelf date at all for retailers outside of North America; this was changed earlier this year and all marking were taken off of our master cartons. The reason for this is that there was no entertainment event that set up the new line launch in other countries; in the U.S. and Canada it is part of the lead-up to the launch of Clone Wars Season 3 and all licensees were held to the August date to create an event-feel to the launch."

Well Jeff,that does explain it and I do not follow Q&A religiously hence not read that before.

I agree with the buckpassing comment you made and I also think it's bollocks to say that TVC product coincides with CW season III.

They are not even the same action figure line-up.

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I agree with the buckpassing comment you made and I also think it's bollocks to say that TVC product coincides with CW season III.

They are not even the same action figure line-up.

I disagree with that some... To Hasbro, they're separate, but part of the same whole, and so while the new Vintage Collection doesn't necessarilly relate to the Clone Wars directly, they pretty much view the Star Wars push as being all one big effort... The RC Millenium Falcon isn't part of the Clone Wars obvioiusly, but it's considered part of that push for instance.

The Vintage Collection's packaging is the only real thing setting it apart, but Hasbro likes to keep Star Wars "all together", for lack of a better term I guess. It's all under the same umbrella to them, so to speak, so they try to launch it all at the same time as such. At least that's the impression I've always gotten from them about Star Wars. The Clone Wars is really sort of new territory too though. It's not the same as the movie years. It's got similarities, but there seems to be some pretty big differences as well.

Did anyone else see the story over at Yakface about Hasbro reps planning on fining stores for putting stuff out early and trying to make them take it down with a week left before it can even be put out? This is just getting sad if true.

The story, ala Yakface:

Quote

i decide to to Target at lunch and I found the entire wave of new Star Wars including vehicles and Clone Wars, and I noticed a lady that had a Hasbro name tag looking and scanning the figures. So I kinda hung around deciding if I need a couple of doubles like the AT-AT commander and cloud car pilot. I overhear her on her phone calling someone and then she gives the zip code of the store and store number and starts talking about a fine of $200 saying this stuff should not be out tell August 3rd. She then says that the manager is not there but she has already informed the supervisor and they are aware.

She also said that the new Transformers were out so they could be dinged on that as well. So I quickly grabed the figures I wanted and head to the front because I could hear talking about having someone from electronic come over and pull these off the shelf.

Target's putting stuff out.

Hasbro's getting pissed.

Learn you lesson, Hasbro, dammit!

The lesson is to stop listening to the man on the street for intel on how Hasbro deals with its customers. This is bogus. Not to mention a $200 fine is a waste of time to collect on for BILLION DOLLAR corporations with multi-million dollar accounts.

Hard to tell who is in the wrong without knowing all the details (contracts) but I will say that if Hasbro doesn't want stores to sell these things before a certain date, they shouldn't be shipping them out three months in advance.

Hard to tell who is in the wrong without knowing all the details (contracts) but I will say that if Hasbro doesn't want stores to sell these things before a certain date, they shouldn't be shipping them out three months in advance.

It's not hard to tell in the slightest. Nobody is paying fines. This is my business, and business is a-booming.

Went by a Target in STL today, they had set up the aisle and had the mid size vehicles out, $24.99 each. No problems scanning.

Also of note - there was 12 feet of shelf space for new figuers, including a lot of pegs:

12 Vintage8 Legends4 Clone Wars

My Target near Albany, NY had 8 pegs for Vintage, 8 for Legends, 4 for Clone wars. I think they actually had 6 pegs for Galactic Heroes. Not that it necessarily equates to the total volume that the lines are selling, but it sure seems to be a strange mix.

Mad rush of collectors enter store on street date. Mad rush of collectors see plethora of product. People start grabbing stuff like crazy, maybe even more than they anticipated because they don't want other collectors to grab the item, leaving none left. Wishy-washy collectors unsure have 2 choices - grab stuff or walk out empty handed. They impulse buy - thinking if they change their mind they will return it They forget.